iOS 9 released today

[Christophe Noel]

That's good information, Nate. For the record, my iPhone 5s performance for the last year has not been without some issues as well. I'm on my second 5s and I baby all of my gear, even the stuff I use daily and to max potential. I'm not overly worried about damaging the phone for that reason. In the last ten years, I havent so much as scratched a screen.

Fortunately for me, my sister and her husband have been my guinea pigs and have used the Samsung s6 Edge for the last 60 days, and as Apple converts themselves, give me hope I will like the phone. I'm also not a huge data horder so 64GB on our new phones will be ample.

Ultimately, the last year of iPhone usage has left much to be desired. This experiment feels like a safe bet, even if we go back to iPhones.

 

[Christophe Noel]

And not to derail a thread, the new Edge Plus is superior to the iPhone 6 Plus with a better display, camera, 75% more ram, smaller size, bigger display, lighter, bigger battery, faster aperture for low light performance, double the mega pickles in both cameras,..

Easy choice if you ask me. Plus, the Samsung has scored way better for durabillity, build quality and so on.

 

[nwoods]

I totally agree that samsung's hardware is pretty amazing. But those features may not prove to be as worthwhile in the long run over simple usability. I've played with the Edge. Love the size, but hate the ergonomics. Close your eyes, pick up the phone. It's upside down every time!

 

[mpinco]

Not surprised on iOS issues. Android is very fragmented and a security disaster. Both are relatively old that may be reaching the limits of their architectures. Personally I have moved to Blackberry 10, QNX and Passport.

Blackberry's latest product announcement, Priv, looks interesting from a hardware perspective but running Android may prove problematic. If they can address the shortcomings it might be attractive. I was amused at CEO John Chen's stumbling with Android during a recent interview introducing Priv. BB10 flow interface is so much more functional and easy to use vs. the old interfaces of iOS9 and Android.

 

[nwoods]

Another bug (?) in iOS9. Seems like the implementation of Force Touch script on non-force touch hardware (such as the 5s or 6) has changed some default behaviors. For example in the calendar Month view, if you tap a date to open up the details of that day's schedule, nothing happens. Tap and hold, nothing, tap a few more times, eventually, it opens and you wonder what you did that made it work.

Upon further experimentation, it seems you now need to double tap items that "Peek" under Force Touch. Boo! Bad Apple. My phone should be smarter enough to know I don't have force touch. Don't change the way it worked before the update!

 

[nwoods]

BB10 flow interface is so much more functional and easy to use vs. the old interfaces of iOS9 and Android.

I'm a bit confused by this comment. Doesn't the BB10 run on Android?

 

[Root Moose]

No, the native Blackberry OS is QNX and it has an Android emulation layer for running Android apps.

 

[mpinco]

Further clarity .....

Passport's OS is QNX that support a Runtime for APK that runs Java/Dalvik. Libraries included in the Google Android SDK are supported. If an app uses libraries not in the Google Android SDK, support is not guaranteed or even functional. There are 3rd party add-ons that attempt to address that gap.

Priv, the recently announced BB phone, apparently runs Android natively although full product feature set and specifics have yet to be released. Some BB 10/QNX features such as Security, Hub and Link are supposed to be included but again, no formal spec sheet. Rumors abound. Will be interesting to see how BB enables security on a platform that is inherently not secure. Maybe Android is still running on QNX? LOL

The consumer spaces is about "Apps" even though many users do not install additional apps (find the base set sufficient) or install only 2 or 3 additional apps.

Outside smartphones the QNX division of BB is supposed to be working on virtualization of OSes. This removes emulation. It then comes down to a licensing issue.